• Someone fell off the 30:30 wagon three times. She is now on Day 23 (round 15) and should be able to make it with her favorite sandbox playmate, Valerie helping her out with the other half of the poems.

• Because drinking was making A one heck of a depressed drunk, she decided to stop... or at least drink only on weekends. Plus, the wine store across the street has had a change of owner. There's a woman there now. She has terrible wine — believe me I tried them all. I used to think I can glug down anything... I was mistaken.

• Have bought a ticket for Manila... and have started having anxiety dreams about the plane taking off without me again.

• The laptop caught a virus for the second time in two years and had to be reformatted. The cure seems to agree with Muerte (as re-baptized on 13 January 2009). Since then it's been more quiet, ventilator-wise. No more crazy chopper/hacking cough sounds. Yay!

• Chainsaw rant coming down here —

Recently discovered on my own that London Magazine didn't include my poem in their Anglo/Indian issue after all. I'm quite pissed about it since they didn't even bother to tell me after all this time when I could've sent it off elsewhere. Oh yes. I remember. On their guidelines page they say they don't send rejections. First they send me the proofs, with a two-day response time or else (they chopped off the first stanza, too without so much as a by-your-leave). I okayed everything next day, then sometime later got invited to the issue launch. A good thing I was in Philly that time... if I had gone all the way to London to read a poem that they chose not to publish, I'd probably have gone after somebody with a knife.

I guess I'm just pissed for the most part that that poem, which is about a woman mourning the death of her unborn child, didn't make it right next to that half-page SMB ad: for all your corporate and personal tax advice. Hee.

Anyway, I'm blacklisting this magazine. I think they're a bit better via snailmail, for some strange reason. But that was way back in 2007.

This is an elegant online journal, quite eclectic tastes. With regards to response times, the editor actually wrote me on 17 December 2008 to ask if the poems were still available. The in-between e-mail exchange kind of made the waiting seem less.

Submission sent: 7 October 2008 Reply date: 9 January 2009

Okay. I confess. I knew he was my kind of editor when I read his e-mail signature quote:

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food. —W.C. Fields

Just because I no longer drink on weekdays (again), doesn't mean I've stopped thinking of it.

If I had an eye patch, I'd give you my eye—Orphanagefive : leapsix : sundown

for their first issue (Summer 2009). They officially open to unsolicited submission on 1 April 2009 — for the Fall/Winter 2009 issue. Don't forget. It's a neat, sleek 'zine. Response time was one day — really quick, but under normal circumstances they give 2-3 months in the guidelines.

• While hopping from one 'zine to another, I discovered Robot Melon and couldn't resist submitting. Who could resist such an order as ticklish as, In the body of the e-mail give us a 2-3 line biography. If you like a certain type of bear, this might be the place to mention it. Neat little bear trap, ain't it?

Anyway, I was thrilled that they accepted my prose poem, What Happens to the Postwoman When She Stops Delivering the Mail for Issue Nine. Nothing like some robot lovin' to wake up to in the morning. Hee.

Submission sent: 30 December 2008 Reply date: 18 January 2009

• Three collaboems, (1) Visions of Lamb Cooked in Slight Brine, (2) We Wrote a Letter to Jesus and He Told Us To Buy a New Car, and (3) In retrospect, 1984 made a fine sausage — that Valerie and I wrote last year have been accepted for publication in the Mutating the Signature issue of qarrtsiluni.

6 comments:

I am very happy you are back here Arlene!Fearful news about such a bad behaviour of London Magazine! someone, such like Duotrope Digest, should be informed. And it's strange because London Magazine is such a highbrow famous publication!

Oak Bend Review is a nice journal, I enjoyed it in the past and there should be something of mine in there...God my memory...All the best, Davide

About Me

Arlene Ang is the author of "The Desecration of Doves" (2005), "Secret Love Poems" (Rubicon Press, 2007), and a collaborative book with Valerie Fox, "Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon" (Texture Press, 2008). Her third full-length collection, "Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu" was published by Cinnamon Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in Ambit, Caketrain, Diagram, Poetry Ireland, Poet Lore, Rattle, Salt Hill as well as the Best of the Web anthologies 2008 and 2009 (Dzanc Books). She lives in Spinea, Italy where she serves as staff editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. Website: www.leafscape.org